Seven Tears into the Sea (26 page)

“Soon,” he said, looking eager and awful, at once. “I'm not sure, but I'll know when it's time.”

It was already dark. How long did we have? Weeks? Days? Hours?

He kissed me then, a rough and passionate kiss. He did love me, but if I kept him captive, would I ever again hear him laugh?

Had I heard my favorite laugh in all the world for the last time?

“There's this thing I keep thinking, Jesse. So often, you don't know when it's the last time, and you can't really appreciate—”

“It's for the best, Gwen.” He sounded unyielding. “If you knew it was the last time, how could you stand it? If I were holding you for the last time, how could I ever let you go?”

For years I'd practiced not crying. I could make myself stop. So I did.

“We'll try it out tomorrow.” I cleared my throat and made my voice sunshiny. “Maybe I'll change my mind. Maybe I'll find a perfect hiding place for your skin, but for now—”

He followed my gaze as I looked at the strange black fur beside him.

“I'll take it down to the grotto,” he said, then he tried to joke, too. “If Thelma came over to see how you fared in the storm, it would be just a little bit difficult to explain.”

He laughed, but it wasn't his real laugh. He bundled that length of satiny skin under his arm and gave me a kiss on the forehead.

I opened the door for him and heard a fluttering in the blackberry bushes.

“What is it?” Jesse asked.

“The swallows?”

It was actually still light outside. After all, it was Midsummer, the longest day of the year. I squatted and I saw wings.

“Look!” I said. “They didn't die. You know, I saw them making test flights, but I didn't think …” I shook my head. “I guess they were almost ready.”

“Ready enough,” Jesse said, and then he jumped off the deck, to the ground.

He was still naked. Someone might see him. But I refused to waste the time it would take to find him clothes that would fit.

“You've got five minutes to get there and back,” I told him. “So, hurry.”

Jesse didn't say good-bye.

He ran toward the Inn, then turned left toward the Point.

Before those five minutes were up, I knew he was gone.

I can't say what changed. The waves' crack at their peak sounded just the same. So did their searching whispers as they rushed ashore. The air still smelled of salt and kelp and summer, but I felt a new stillness.

I sat on the step until twilight turned black. Then I
went to find my broken sunrise shell.

Even as I picked up the pieces from the floor, I couldn't blame Gumbo for breaking it. In fact, it wasn't broken.

It's true that the two halves were no longer hinged. They weren't clinging to each other, but each was a cream-colored wing with a rosy flush inside.

I held one half in each hand. If I took this shell across the room or across the universe, and the other one stayed here, they'd still be two halves of a whole, and anyone would know they belonged together.

The selkie dove deep. He banked around a thicket of kelp, arrowing toward Mirage Point. Only when his lungs burned did he burst up with unwavering certainty. He shattered the surface into a million silver drops, aiming for dawn's glimmer, then crashed nose down between the waves.

In the moment spray turned to water, he'd seen her.
Gwen.
He knew she'd waited the night for him, then accepted the truth. He wasn't coming back.

It was dawn as he returned to the surface, shaking droplets to a haze around him.

Gwen balanced on the cliff's edge. Her bathing suit was a defiant red splash against the fog.

Did she hate him or love him? From here he couldn't read her eyes.

He swam back and forth, prowling, anxious, far
enough away that she would not see him if she looked.

Gwen stood straight, resolved. As if she had nothing to lose.

That night seven years ago, he'd watched Gwennie stand straight, arms covering her ears, standing tiptoe in her child's white nightgown. Then she'd changed her mind and walked the path to Little Beach.

Now Gwen was no child.

This time she would leap.

He swam closer, chest moving prowlike through the waves, unable to look away. Over her head, her fingers pointed like the tip of the candle flames that had burned around them last night.

She looked down, trusting herself to read the waves' language. Her knees flexed. A rippling pool shone blue amid foaming waters, and she aimed for it. The balls of her feet launched her up and out. An afterimage of scarlet hung on the air as the sea swallowed her.

My sea. My home. A cruel being would go to her now. But he could not.

Eyes wide, he dove in time to see her arch away from the ocean's floor. Bubbles streamed from her mouth. Her hair fanned, red amber. Her smile was victorious as she kicked toward the surface.

In seven years she might decide sea and shore needn't stay separate after all.

In seven years he would return to wait. And hope.